


The God of Poets Has Two Hands

by minxy



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-13
Updated: 2011-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-18 01:32:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minxy/pseuds/minxy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It is my understanding that great heroes are often set greatly apart, even from those they fight to protect.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The God of Poets Has Two Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Great thanks, as always, go to Rydra Wong for discussion and beta. Thanks also to Synecdochic and Paian for discussions and encouragement.  
> This story was written to the LiveJournal community choc_fic prompt: the burdens of leadership - [I talk] about a strong, demanding love. And I have seen too much hate. (MLK Jr)

“Master Bra’tac?” The human speaks respectfully, but the enthusiasm in his voice was of one who had not seen many winters.

Bra’tac turns from the conversation that is ending and gives the boy his attention; he is dressed in spun fabric, though with a warm enough looking cloak, especially in the heat of the day. It is still a little surprising to Bra’tac that he is sometimes petitioned this way. Even in the company of the current meeting, the informality of wooden buildings, warm dirt roads.

“My name is Suniel, I am a ravi from Nisset Mara,” he says, eyes going wide as he swallows. A new bard, perhaps. “My master and I have a song to sing at the meeting tonight, after. I wondered if you would give us your approval to sing it?”

“Why would you require my permission?” Bra’tac asks him, kindly enough, “Humans do not require the Jaffa’s approval to sing a story, certainly.” At least, not any more. Time was, of course, but that time is long past now.

“It concerns the Jaffa,” the boy says, turning to give way as a merchant of some kind jostles to get by him. Bra’tac does not yield his position, and the merchant walks around him without even letting his carried parcels touch Bra’tac’s cloak. The young bard shuffles his feet, lets his eyes follow anyone moving in the street. “And our leader.”

What a human boy, or a human leader, for that matter, might know of Jaffa, Bra’tac cannot guess. He does not know why he himself has been singled out to render permission, and wonders whether the song will have any merit whatsoever. “Who is your leader?” Bra’tac prompts, thinking perhaps that the man is at the conference.

“Thilana, Marot’s wife,” the young bard continues, standing straight as he turns away from the bustle of the street, “who convinced the Jaffa to leave during the emancipation.”

“And it is this victory over the Jaffa in your village that you wish to sing?” Bra’tac said, marshalling his words to reprimand with appropriate vehemence. The bard’s eyes widen as he remembers his audience, it is a mistake bards might not be forgiven.

The boy quickly says, “No, it was no fight, it was peaceful. Thilana is a peace-maker. There are no ruins to begin within.”

Bra’tac hesitates, his reprimand fading from his mind. He asks, “Of what then will you sing?”

“Of when she invited the Jaffa back,” the young bard says, trying to stand tall, “well, one Jaffa, called Master Teal’c, in the company of other humans from the first world.”

He is tall enough for a bard, and focused, when he wishes to be. The timbre of his speaking voice holds promise, but he offers no further explanation of his story.

Bra’tac decides. “Ravi Suniel,” he says formally, “Would you sing me this song, that I might offer my informed approval?”

The young bard offers a small smile, looks at the thinning crowd around him, and backs up a step into the crossroads. His posture changes, and his shoulders look strong enough to holding a staff weapon, or to hold the breath to sing.

Bra’tac realizes that he has never heard a human song from beginning to end.

“Warriors, of great renown,” the bard announces,  
“Warriors walked the water road.  
At the welcome of Thilana, open-handed,  
On the threshold of the fire-throwers.

Friends they entered, five a’company.  
To find familiar enemies from foreign skies.  
Mighty Teal’c and his thanes, first arm to each other.

Together they bear unstable weapons for an unstable war,  
Easy as companions, confident shield-carriers  
Each to be challenged on changing fronts,  
Fighting changeling demons, with few allies.

*

“They sang a song about my father,” Ry’ac tells him, when he is still an apprentice warrior in training. His eyes are wide and a vast chasm begging to be filled with confirmation, information. Child on the edge of outcast. Boy on the edge of orphan.

For a long time, the hero stories told carefully about Teal’c, First Prime of Apophis, Shol’va, Discoverer of the First World, would be most of what Ry’ac knew of his father. Bra’tac understood little enough of Ry’ac’s mother, but he knew she rarely spoke of her resentment around the boy; for this he respects Drey’auc, but he is not sure her fictions about Teal’c’s true path are honorable.

He does not understand much of women’s ways.

Bra’tac is not sure what his role must be, caught between Drey’auc and Teal’c and their son. He trains Ry’ac in the only manner he knows, unsure how much to tell him of his father.

Ry’ac will learn soon enough, in his own way, Bra’tac is sure; and perhaps that is the only way.

*

Freedom-giver Teal’c, stands among would-be enemies.  
Two-armed, fighting before and behind.  
Those he may, he brings weapons upon them,  
Metal and force, storms in his voice.

Mighty Teal’c, sky-traveller, is brought to knee  
An enemy’s weapon through leather and girth.  
Defiantly, grey-eyed Thilana stands beside him, ring-giver.

Leaning upon the village cornerstone  
Proud Teal’c, son of noble fierceness,  
Finds an orator-guide, in self-same robes.  
Mighty Teal’c, great of arm, rests on Thilana’s shoulder.

*

“Why is it, Master Bra’tac,” Rak’nor begins, as he often does, “Why is it that humans from a near meaningless planet can tell us more of our heroes than we can tell them?”

Bra’tac says, “We might tell them a great deal of Teal’c, if we chose to sing.” He listens with one ear to the unfamiliar rhythms of the bard and one ear to his friend and student, “I don’t doubt that they would be as telling as this one, to people unfamiliar with our ways.”

Bra’tac, though, is learning of a human leader, a woman, who refused honors from the Goa’uld and yet stepped forward under the barest of luxuries after the Goa’uld fell. He wonders if there is something about human women that allows them to become leaders with less strife in the transition than the Jaffa must withstand.

Perhaps it is simply that he knows little of how this woman came to her position.

Rak’nor makes a frustrated sound but does not make to leave the recitation. The frustration is a sign of weakness unwarranted by the day’s negotiations—and he is not usually as fatigued by the machinations of politics as Bra’tac is.

Bra’tac probably could leave the greater part of political negotiations to him at this point in time, but Rak’nor continues to request his presence, and Bra’tac suspects his home on Chulak would be too quiet. Rak’nor will always require a significant team of councilors; Bra’tac usually finds this an admirable quality.

Sometimes Bra’tac wonders if Teal’c will ever really forgive him for pressuring him into the political arena; he sometimes wonders if Rak’nor would have discovered his political savant if Teal’c had not relied on him so heavily.

“I thought I understood something of Master Teal’c,” Rak’nor says, and in any other voice it would sound far more arrogant, “I thought I knew something of duty. I do not understand why Teal’c stands alone in petty battles to save a few dozen humans when he could be leading the entirety of the Free Jaffa against the same enemy. I do not understand why I must learn of his actions in this way.”

Rak’nor speaks with face towards the performer, his voice pitched only for Bra’tac to hear. He is thinking, Bra’tac knows, working through thoughts and unsure what the outcome will be. The voice of the bard winds around them.

Bra’tac is confident that Rak’nor will someday forgive him for presenting the political arena as duty; he is not sure Rak’nor will ever forgive Teal’c.

He has been wrong before, though. On many occasions.

The singer has captured the attention of the crowd, they mill around easily, but stay carefully low as they cross other’s lines of vision, keep their voices low so as not to compete. Strange for such a mixed gathering to be so universally rapt.

There are more skills in the universe, Bra’tac thinks, than he has even dreamt of acquiring. But he has never been a singer; neither has Teal’c. Then again, he was never meant to feature in hero tales, as Teal’c has, redefining the story’s traditions. Perhaps these, like so many other traditions brought out of hiding, will adapt to the freedom of expression. Perhaps they should send a promising young singer to learn the songs of the humans, the skills of a lifetime song-maker.

Bra'tac wonders what shape the songs sung of Rak’nor will take.

Bra’tac says, “It is my understanding that great heroes are often set greatly apart, even from those they fight to protect.”

He is not sure if this dogma holds true for great leaders as well.

*

Brave Teal’c, god-slayer, betrayed in sanctuary.  
He has no sharp weapons for bald threats.  
Rest disturbed, he stands, storm-shaken.  
Hand heavy on slight Thilana’s shoulder.

The canyon-walkers hear wind in their ears,  
Wayward honor, long worn-down,  
Succumbs to chasm depths.

The dirt-digger, dust on his feet, faces dastan Thilana and yields.  
The shield-arm, world-singer, wary guide, speaks:  
“The old ways are not the only ways,” she says,  
“We may fall to evil, but we will not wield its weapons.”

*

“Master Bra’tac!” Young warriors have such energy, Bra’tac thinks to himself. This one has height already that belays his young age, but his energy speaks to a near readiness for training. Or the hyperactivity of a child up past his bedtime on a celebration night.

“Master Bra’tac! They sang a song about you!” The boy skidded to a halt with his shoulder slightly turned and one hand cast sideways to balance. He has some agility; it would be interesting to see if he could be taught grace before his size abrogated the necessity.

“Did they, now?” Bra’tac says, smiling easily now that he is home. It was traditional to sing the exploits and braveries of the returning warriors as they reentered the village, but it was also customary to practice the song excessively on the return voyage. Bra’tac would not have gone out of his way to hear the inflated tale again unless accompanied by one who would entertain on his own merits by listening. “Shall we go and hear it?”

“It’s finished. They’re singing women’s songs now.” The boy’s face remained upturned and open, but his dismissal of the women’s songs was already evident. “You were very brave,” he said with open admiration.

“Songs make a great drama out of things far less impressive in the moment,” Bra’tac says, watching the boy bounce in excitement of understanding the complex poetry he has heard.

“You were! You were mighty and strong and you cast down the enemy on the fields of Mak’re!” He grins openly, and Bra’tac smiles back at him.

“I am no fit hero for their songs,” Bra’tac says with mock earnestness, “I have not the stature. Now you, you may indeed grow tall enough one day. Would that suit you?”

“I hope they will sing songs about me,” he says with his child’s voice, long limbs suddenly still with the seriousness of children’s truth.

“Have you planned them out already?” Bra’tac says, sitting on a nearby rock wall. His formal armour is heavy, and the boy Teal’c was not yet so tall that sitting did not bring them closer to eye-level. “I expect they will have to be especially magnificent songs.”

“Full of battles and fighting!” Teal’c says, “They’ll exclaim how I hated the enemy and brought down great ha’tak with just my staff weapon from a hilltop!”

The boy was getting older, but Bra’tac could still see the instinct to act out the theater he described (probably just heard in the warrior’s song—there had indeed been a ha’tak, and a hilltop, though neither were especially notable,) in twitches of the shoulder and a widening of the stance. In short order, this boy would begin his life as a warrior, to last longer than this short childhood by many hundreds of years. He would forget innocence too quickly; there was no need to rush headlong into the hatred of servitude.

“Better to be the hero of the women’s songs,” Bra’tac says, turning his face out to the familiar landscape. He had brought fire down from the sky on the other village, it’s destruction lost in the victory songs. Bra’tac says to the boy Teal’c, “It is always preferable to be a warrior who returns home.”

“But it’s better to die in battle,” Teal’c says, earnestly, “and the women’s songs are boring; all love and mourning and standing in the ruins.” He pulls a face.

“Love could be quite a worthy challenge, I should imagine,” Bra’tac says, leaving aside the challenges of coming home, or remembering the dead. He turns his face back to the near-warrior before him, “And I have known far too much of hate; better the alternative.”

But he gets up, and takes the boy into the songs and community by the fire. If they do not appreciate the wisdom of women’s songs, at least they will not get cold.

*

God-branded Teal’c, heir to Bra’tac,  
Son of Mehr’auc, Ronac, and Chulak,  
Father of Ry’ac, freedom-fighter,  
Friend to Tau’ri and Tok’ra. Alliance-maker.

Most trusted, who brings hard-learned magic  
To the free peoples on the water road;  
Brave Teal’c chooses Thilana as wisdom-speaker.

Riding the trails of the light-walkers,  
With peace and friendship we resist old evils,  
Great of wind-soul, greater even than his actions,  
We who remain, shout his works to the worlds.

**

end


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